Lessons

Lesson Info

Camera Support

I use both the mono pod in a tripod depending on where I'm shooting in what my mood is like this is my mono pod and it's quite different than most uh normal mano pods air designed like tripods are where with a tripod each joint where you would extend or collapse it would be something after loosen and then you can move it and they have to tighten and so if I want to change the height it takes a bit of time and I might have to work with more than one of these two really change the height quickly that makes it so you not going to be all that versatile all that fast moving when you're shooting in most model paz would have that same arrangement if you look at this particular mono pod it doesn't have any of those connectors on it at all instead at the top there is a trigger that you squeeze when you squeeze the trigger then it loosens up the connectors that aaron here and allows you to extend this so to extend her collapse this all I need to do is grab the top and squeeze it and then pull an...

d now I can go to any height I want and when I let go it's locked in tow that height I can't go lower I could go higher but I can't go lower so that way if I want to shoot really low I just get down low if you want to shoot high I could go really high and I can do that almost instantly and it doesn't get in my way similar to my belt in suspenders set up is this makes it so I'm not thinking about my gear I'm just using my gear and I'm done if you get a mono pod though you should get a head on top of it and let me see I'm not sure if I have a picture with me or not taking just a moment to find out but if you don't have a head on top of your mono pod yes you're gonna have to do this if you look at my screen uh if you want to shoot up ok it's not the most elegant thing to dio that's me in moscow actually when I didn't have the head on top of here you can see me with the belt on I just have one pouch in that case of my normal belt but that's what you have to do to tilt up or down so not very fun so you want to find a head for a mono pod that's not a normal head not a ball head instead you just need one that loosens up and goes let's you tilt up or down like this and there are many different options as to what to use I happen to use one that's from a company called really write stuff really too right stuffs gears expensive though so if you're a casual shooter or just getting into it you might want to start with something else to keep your budget and range and if you're going to go you know full pro kind of thing and you're going to invest in the gear than this is like one of the better ones but this allows you to tell so I could shoot up towards the top of building shoot down towards something else that kind of thing the one thing this doesn't have that I wish it did is my grand my lens if you switch between a long lens in a short lens the way you connect the lens is on this little collar and I'll talk about how the connection works but when I go to a long lens this is going the wrong direction I don't need to tell that way I need to tell this way so there is a different version of this head that they didn't offer at the time that I purchased it and that is one where the top can be rotated ninety degrees if I shoot with both long lenses and short lenses I would get the one that can rotate I wish I had it could you let us know the manufacturer on the mono pod please yeah I'm sorry I didn't mention this is made by mon fratto and I believe the line of mano pods that this is called the neo tech that's what it is here in e o t e c I will look up the exact model number and make sure it's in the handbook for the course but if you look up amon fratto neo tech you should be able to find similar setups this is an older version the newer versions you will find have a different foot on the bottom one that has a little extension off the side so you could put your foot on it they will also have a squishy rubber thing up here in some of them have a safety at the top we have to squeeze your pinky before the top this is an old version it actually was given to me by friend do you know jack davis jack gave me this way were in next jack we're in florida I think was jack years and years ago and he had to buy one for teaching a class and he's done with it and was going somewhere he didn't need it he's like here but so I love it so with that there mon fratto makes ahead for it as well just look for a head just do a google search for mono pothead and search for any head that goes in one direction where tilts doesn't is not a ball head where it goes every different way so that's what I like to use their tripod wise you have a bunch of different options the main thing is carbon fiber tribe gods will be much lighter than aluminum s o if you're going to be traveling anywhere we have to hike around and stuff those are nice but they're very expensive um there's a bunch of different brands of them I'm not gonna recommending particular one because I only have this one I've had one other brand before but I haven't tried the other so I would read reviews for people that have tried a lot of them I just want to show you the generic qualities that I really like in my tripod so you know to incorporate at least those ideas so first off on the top of mine have a quick release you don't need the quick release um just put a ball head on it all right usually in the top of your tripod you're gonna have a ball head I find the best ball head I've been able to find and I did look at quite a few it is one that is made by company that's called really write stuff really right stuff makes a bunch of different ball heads you'll find they're used so often for photographers here in the field and stuff you'll see them no probably one of the most popular that are out there because they're so good I particularly like the one that's called the b h forty b as in boy h forty they make a larger one called the think it's going to be aged fifty five I have it as well I find I enjoy this one better I like this little lever instead of a big kind of di alike control this is easier for me too get my hand on I like that it's smaller but if you look at the weight capability of it it can handle any piece of gear that I have unless you have a huge lens you don't need the fifty five usually unless you happen to prefer it I like the forty and the one thing you look for in a bald head uh for one thing is make sure it has an area where you can rotate it from the base for doing panoramas where you can loosen it to rotate down there most should but that's my favorite by far uh on the tripod itself a couple different things about it first off if you shoot any panoramas or just shoot in general it's nice to be well have your camera level so that your horizons there nice and level without you thinking about it so when you do a panorama if you pan across your not going downhill or uphill as you go across and so be able level the tripod is important most tripods though tow level them you have to adjust the legs and that takes a lot of time if I give you a tripod that's out of level and just say come up here and level it you might take two or three minutes to do it what I have here is this area here and I think it's usually referred to as a leveling center column even though there's no center column on my tripod but what it is is it's like a little miniature ball head right here and all it'll asked me to do if I loosen this is aiken level my bald head there's a little bubble level here I could move it around until its level and then tighten that and by doing so it makes it so the angle of the legs doesn't really matter as long as they're somewhat close toe level in then the level it is really quick he just loosen that up with this around and then tighten it and that makes my life so much nicer that otherwise I'm cursing all the time especially from on rocks and things where I'm trying to get my tripod in there and so I love that particular thing different manufacturers of different tripods offer different versions of this but it's a very nice feature not essential if you're just getting started but if you're going to get really serious about landscape photography and other like architectural photography that kind of stuff that would be great if I'm shooting people in stuff not it's important because people are mean who please zoomed in on their heads and stuff and I I don't see the background quite as much I'm sorry ben I think I missed it is that part of the tripod itself it's an accessory you can add to the tribe to the tripod itself great thank you accessory khun ad so usually this part of my ball had starting right here would be connected down here and it's this little part that is allowing me to level it so I combined afterwards to add to my tripod kind of thing if you already have one no manfredo I think makes one this one's made by really write stuff that kind of thing tripod wise um main thing is carbon fibers nice goodies lightweight but the main thing I'm thinking about it in a tripod is how stable it is and how tall it will go so I'm not into the video tripods that have the little legs in between them there seem to be not all that stable if it's a consumer model it's a professional model it's great they're really heavy and they're nice but the consumer models aren't very stable and I want to try upon that I could get high enough without using any kind of a center column the centre column makes it less stable it's harder to keep it nice and uh uh sharp so what I like is if we show you how tall this tripod goes all right so then if you and karen needed an extra you know place to sleep for the night just put some fabric around ten uh yeah so you see how high up here my camera would be it's well over my head when I first bought tripods I bottom where it would be more like my camera would be at high level but what I found is all too often I would end up getting into a situation like this one if you can tell what's going on there but I'm staying in iraq my tripods in the water which is lower than where I'm standing and so because of that if I have a tripod that only makes it upto eye level now I'm in that and I gotta crouch over to even look through the camera do you want to crouch over when you're balancing on some rocks no so I want this to be over my head for me personally uh it doesn't need to be exactly this high but I wanted to touch at least my top of my head in that way I could be on iraq I could be in a slanted surface with my tripods legs and all that and my camera can still make it up to my I hight okay then two other final kind of pieces of gear is one thing that I like that is extravagant for most people but it's just nice to know about is if you shoot a lot of panoramas or use a lot of large images are large lenses because you shoot wildlife that kind of thing is I have a different head this is the actually the head that I use every day the only time I don't use this head on my tripod is what I'm gonna hike a really long distance because this is heavier than normal tripod head it looks really weird doesn't it this is what's on my tripod ninety eight percent of the time so first off I can level it because I have that leveling base there's a bubble level right here then in fact this is miss around then I could take my camera tash it and I'll talk about how it attacked us in a moment and this allows me to independently move the camera in this direction for panoramas and let's say I want to do a panorama that involves a huge area I pan across like this then I can tilt down and I can pan across again and then until down and pan across again if I want to cover a really huge area I can easily do that with this and I really like this set up this is what I used ninety eight percent of the time it doesn't mean you need it it just means evaluate what you're like when you're in the field do you do a lot of panorama knows where this might be useful the other thing it's useful for is if I have a really long lens let's say this was even bigger like the really big kind aiken justice so that this if I move us slide this back and ford could become balanced where I can use a big lens and move around without the lens wanting to have the tendency of going down because it's heavy where the camera wanting to go this way because it's heavy I can adjust this ford and back sliding it forward and back until the camera lens packages balanced then it's just really light moving around to shoot wildlife so it has kind of dual purpose then the final thing to know about all this tripod stuff is the way the camera attaches to it is in a special way there's a bracket on my camera this is a metal bracket that is made for this specific camera model and this is also from the company called really write stuff although other companies make them I believe there's a company called kirk that makes competing products and this is made for the camera in that this is perfectly curved to fit the camera so that this will never move it's such a tight connection it's ridiculous and then there's just little in dense on the side of this where aiken take it it's in an l shape so I can either put it on here and shoot a horizontal like this or if I want to switch to vertical I just undo this class turn it vertical and pop it in and that way you don't have to use the tripods little you know your ball heads little cutouts that are there that are overly difficult to go vertical you just switched the orientation like this I could do the same thing of my mono pod just switch the orientation that fast so love that stuff about how smooth is that head could you pan and tilt for video on you khun do a pretty good job but they actually have a different version of this head okay I think it's out right now they're working on video related products and I believe it's alex I think I've seen it but there's a different version that would have little kind of buttons on this where you could press the button and it would become a fluid head where you could do it for a video and you press the other button and it wouldn't be fluid meaning you can swing this really easily without any tryingto anything trying to slow you down so there is a different version of it that could be used for that purpose couple questions and then get go out great so c s alone and okay I have a couple questions could you best explain what the mono pods are best used for and like and he when when do you like to use a tripod when do you like to use them on a pod okay I like the use of mono pod when a couple different instances first some places don't allow tripods if I go into certain museums and other things they'll say no can't come in with a tripod but if I say can I come in with my walking stick or if I just show them this and they notice that it's something that doesn't take time to set up then oftentimes I can get into particular locations that would not allow me to bring in a tripod I could bring my mono pod other times I just need to shoot very quickly and then move on and shoot again and move on and shoot again if I'm following along let's say rich sixty six in the us and I'm going to be covering twenty five hundred miles in the next very short period of time I'm gonna have a very limited amount of time at each stop and so I might use a mono pod is a way of getting a sharper picture because I'm going to be more stable than shooting hand held with this also as I'll show you in a different session I used the mono pod toe actually extend the camera above my head so if I put the camera on the end of this if I encounter offense I can just adjust the angle of the top and then I could extend this out over the top of the fence and use the self timer on my camera ten second self timer and be able to shoot over a fence or in other areas that I can't otherwise get to and so that's why use this if I don't feel like if I feel that's going to slow me down too much and make me not get the shots that I really wanted then I might do this hey ben is the panel head is that really write stuff is well yes it is great thank you and all these things I'll get them in the handbook so that I'll make sure I have model numbers for most everything they're cool one quick last question for you a pro photographer wants to know about filters do you use uv filters or neutral density filters huh yeah when it comes to filters there are three filters that I use I have a polarizer you need a circular polarizer in orderto work with the auto focus in your camera I use the circular polarizer so any time I have reflections on glass on water or on wet leaves that kind of stuff I can actually cut down the reflection with that and get more rich colors that kind of thing I also have to neutral density filters I have I think it's a to stop neutral density filter I used for waterfalls and I have a ridiculous one can't remember how many stops things like nine stops or something and that's what I use if I want to shoot at the beach and turn the waves into something that just looks like white almost foggy stuff where the water would be so those are the three filters I have and then what I do is I buy them I had the largest size that I have from my lenses some of my lenses the size of the ring around the outside is seventy seven millimeters in other ones or eighty two millimeters so I can't use the seventy seven millimeter filter is too small to fit the eighty two so what I have also is a step down ring it's just a little metal ring where you can thread a larger filter on and then put that onto a smaller lens so those are the three filters I used but we'll talk more about that stuff in the shooting section